Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Rivka Sherman Gold wrote:
> Yitzhak and Fred, thank you for the responses.
>
> I'd like to rephrase my question a bit. I'm trying to find out if an ancient
> (pre-Tiberian vocalization) pronunciation of the name of Ruth mother-in-law
> had an OH vowel sound as the vowel of NUN. This is as opposed to an AH vowel
> sound.
>
> My focus is not long vs. short vowels/sounds, but the actual vowel-sound.
>
> What I'm referring to as OH is the O in Ohel (=tent) or Kodesh (=holiness),
> not like the way the Tiberians pronounced a Kamatz (sort of like AW in
> Awesome).
>
> Based on both your answers it seems to me that an ancient pronunciation was
> indeed with an OH sound.

Where did I say that?

> Do you agree or disagree - and why? And any other responses are welcome.

I think it was a qamats sound, much like the way Tiberians pronounced the
qamats centuries later, and much like the way Ashkenazi Jews pronounce
the qamats today.

The Greek transcription does not allow us to identify a qamats from a holam.
The use of an omega could stand for either a long qamats or a long holam.
However, it is more likely the sound was originally a qamats rather than a
holam.  First, this way we don't have to suppose any change along the way
to Tiberian pronunciation.  There was a qamats sound back then, and it
was retained all the way to Tiberian pronunciation.  If we suppose a holam
sound, we would have to explain why this holam sound became a qamats
in Tiberian, and in other cases a holam did not.  This also brings me to the
second issue, which is: it seems to me that a qamats would more likely
develop to a holam (as it did later in some dialects of Hebrew) than that
a holam would develop to a qamats.  You'd have to consult studies on
typological analyses for that, though.

In other words, you start out with the choice (as you put it): OH vs AH.
But really, you have three choices (in your terms): OH vs AH vs AW.

It seems to me it was originally neither OH nor AH, but AW.

Yitzhak Sapir